The National Basketball Associating is preparing their teams for multiple scenarios, including an outright cancellation of the season, in the response to the global pandemic of coronavirus. The situation is changing at seemingly all times, with the timeline of a potential restart of the league already moving quite a bit from the initial plans.
After NBA commissioner Adam Silver went on TNT and suggested that the absence of the league would be at least a month, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the league is telling teams to look for arena dates that go well into August if they do restart the season, meaning that the NBA won’t return for at least three months. The NBA is mulling several scenarios, according to Woj.
For now, there’s a working plan that games would return without fans, and teams have been told to search out arena dates well into August for the playoffs, sources said. Teams have been directed to give the league office potential dates at smaller nearby game venues, including team practice facilities, that could spare the use of empty, cavernous arenas and possibly provide backdrops to unique television viewing lines.
The CDC recommended a cancellation or postponement of gatherings of 50 people or more for the next eight weeks.
So it looks like the NBA will look at several options, even playing games at practice facilities rather than arenas, which would cut down on the number of people needed to work those games. However, everything, even an outright cancellation, is an option.
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